Hwyl Nofio — Dark
Hwyl Nofio has been active since the late 1999’s, and “Dark” is the projects 5th release. And once again it find's Mr Parry summoning up a moody & often foreboding/ creepy album that sit’s somewhere between: atmospheric avant-garde, doomed improv, ambient, noise, musique concrete, contemporary classical, bastardized & slurred blues/rock composition, and soundtrack like dwells.
The album features 12 tracks in all, and these fall between the around the two minute mark to just shy of the seven & a half minute mark. Over the 12 tracks Parry plays a mixture of Electric guitars, Prepared Violin, Piano, Harmonium, Church Organ, bass, and percussion. With Mark Beazley adding Bass & treatments to the sonic mix.
The album comes in the form of a CD in a card folder that features grey/ black & white moody pictures of aged / textured surfaces & walls. Also there's a hardback book available that accompanies the album, and this features a selection of moody & brooding pictures of abandoned mines, over-grown graveyards, bleak looking junk, rusted metal, ect.
Though the albums title may suggest this is going to be all very gloomy & light-less in it’s atmospheric feel, the albums mood does vary from track to track. Opening up the album we have the creepy flies shimmering on dead corpse vibe of “Dusk”, which brings together buzzing violin drone, locked piano pitter patter & genreal sonic unease. Track two “Gone” conjures up a glowing yet hazy feeling of nostalgic summers past with it’s circular, droning & buzzing mixture of Harmonium & possibly guitar. Where “The swamp Where Adler Grow” summons up a feeling of slurred & uneasy madness with it’s mixture of skipping-on-old-floor-boards field recordings, doomed piano wavering, scuttling banjo like texturing, and later on roaring guitar noise. Or there's the very slurred mixture of blues/ noise guitar & tick-tock clock percussion of “Fairly Folk Funeral” which brought to my mind the confusion of going into a darkened room after been outside in very bright sun shine for a hour or two.
On the whole most of “Dark” is successful in creating its often woozy & wonky mix of sonic emotions & moods. Sadly a few track here do feel a little underworked & wonky in a bad way, but I’d say the lion share of what’s on offer here is creative, moody & ultimate rewarding. I can’t say that the album is as good as the project previous album 2006 Hounded by Fury, but it's certainly a worth enough return to form.